I've heard more teachers who are
in their 40s this year saying that
they've gone onto the CalSTRS
website with the pension calculator
and said what would happen if I
actually did retire this year or next
year then I've ever heard before.
They're kind of joking,
but they're also kind of not joking.
If things get worse,
they're they're looking for a way out
because they don't know if they can
continue doing this for another 20 years.
And that's horrifying.
I'll be retiring in not too much longer,
and they'll be the ones who are
leading the school and helping the
new teachers acclimate. They can't go.
And so that has me very concerned.
If they're looking for a way out,
that's kind of scary.
Diana Lambert, who is the senior
education reporter at Ed Source,
a nonprofit publication that
focuses on education right
here in California, explains
the bigger picture.
Just the fact that we have a
large group of teachers retiring.
Naturally, we had a big group of teachers
in a certain age group are now retiring.
Then we had a 25% increase in
retirements in 2020 because of COVID.
It has leveled off,
but it's impacted us greatly.
And although we did have a slight uptick
in teacher candidates graduating,
it's not enough.
It's just isn't enough.
Now we have other teachers retiring,
leaving early. They're not
counted in the retirement number.
So leaving early because of bad behavior,
the lack of support from
ministration in some cases,
and just, you know,
general feeling that people
don't appreciate teachers.
I'm seeing more considering things
in education outside of teaching,
more of them thinking, you know,
I think I want to go to the county level.
I think I want to go to the district level.
I think I want out of the classroom.
Not necessarily wanting to leave the
profession of education altogether,
but wanting to find ways to love what they
do but not do it in the classroom anymore.
And that makes me sad,
because I feel like there's some amazing
teachers who have real connections
with kids that are burning out.
And with teachers retiring,
recruiting new teachers is crucial.
So how has California addressed the issue?
They put $2 billion in the last
four years into teacher training.
Retention and recruitment.
There's several new
programs that are in place.
Residency programs as well as just
grow your own programs where districts
will train their bus drivers,
clerks, etcetera.
People with bachelors degrees
generally put them through credential
program that the state pays for.
We've got to do something different if we're
going to bring people into the profession,
Troy Flint, who is the chief
Information officer for the California
School Boards Association, says.
More needs to be done at
the state and federal level.
When we treat this situation
with the urgency it deserves,
that we'll be able to make a
dent in this situation and
eventually get back to sea level.
But it's going to take a real
concentrated effort of will to do that.
And we haven't seen that at the
state or the federal level yet.
There have been incremental programs.
Grant programs both at the
state and at the federal level,
but we need something much more
monumental to equal the task.
We need to look at things like
scholarships for people who are
entering the teacher profession,
debt forgiveness programs that
really work unlike the ones we have,
which almost nobody can qualify for.
We need to make the conditions
better for teachers in school so
the position looks more attractive,
but we need to increase compensation as well.
This can't just happen at the local level.
There needs to be a lot of
support where there's more power,
where there's more resources.
That's at the state and federal
level to drive this.
I would love for us to
pay our student teachers.
They need to be paid.
We're asking them to take
on more student debt.
To do an apprenticeship job
that we're not paying them to
apprentice other professions,
you get an apprentice wage,
we're not doing that.
We're like,
this is part of your schooling and
you can't work while you do it,
so you're going to take on more
debt in order to become a teacher.
But if we paid them an apprenticeship wage,
it says you're valuable.
We want you in this profession,
we're willing to pay you to apprentice.
There are still lots of people
who want to work with kids
and they love their subjects.
I get to. Teach some of the
greatest books ever written,
and that's very fulfilling for me.
When I see a kid's eyes light up,
it really get into the
works that we're studying,
and that's really powerful for me.
But if you've never done the job?
And you don't know what it's like
to see that happen with a kid,
then that may not be something
necessarily that will pull
you past all of those other
barriers into the profession.
One
of the first steps that we
need to take as a nation,
as a state, as local communities,
to addressing the teacher
shortage is to restore respect
to the profession of teaching,
or maybe give it proper
respect for the first time.
That can take the form of
increased compensation.
It can take the form of
improved working conditions.
At the beginning of the year,
I always write a letter to my students and
then I have them write a letter to me.
And I've used the same quote for
many years as part of that letter.
And it comes from King Lear by Shakespeare.
And King Lear says nothing comes of nothing.
And I use that to talk to the kids
about how if you can give me something,
I can work with you.
If you give me nothing,
then it makes it that much harder.